Accidentally misgendering

[ScoR20]

Out in a public place today, mistook a boy for a girl (maybe 5 years old, had long hair, clothes more girly than boy looking). The kid replied "I'm not a girl" clearly quite frustrated. I replied in the moment "oh, I'm sorry." I just wondered as a parent would you not do something about this, as clearly it's a regular occurrence for this child and it is getting to them/or should we all be changing to use only gender neutral labels and language going forward?

My grandson has long hair, HE wants it that way. Nothing to do with parents. Hes been called a girl many times..it does anger me ..he dresses like a boy!..even if he didn't..so what? Its ALWAYS older generation too.

It's a child fgs. My dd didn't have very much hair until about 2 and then her hair didn't grow long for a ages, everyone mistook her for a boy until she was 3/4 it didn't matter to me.
She's got lush long hair now.

I think we need to create more space for people of either gender to be however “masculine” or “feminine” they want. Nobody should be restricted by gender.

Then it would be harder to be sexist. Plus people would not feel hidebound by rules. It’s even possible that some people might not feel the need to change gender in order to express their true selves.

Most children will happily let you know if you get their sex wrong.

If they were bothered by it, they might discuss with their parents why it is happening and a parent could explain that some people have fixed stereotypical ideas about what boys and girls wear/wear their hair.

I went out of my way as a teen to look as little like a girl as possible. It was always a compliment when someone thought I was a boy.

Still have short hair, never wear dresses. Still a woman.

I talk to kids often because I love kids and never refer to them as a girl of boy. When I talk to adults I don't refer to them am man or woman.

It's not hard to avoid..

I think you’re right that the best way to reduce any negative impact on the child is not to throw pronouns around if you don’t need to. But natural language use is hard to change.

I think it’s pretty evident that the people on here exclaiming that we mustn’t ever assume children with long hair are girls are mothers of boys with long hair. Or they’re the kind that will allow their male child to wear patent pink sandals ‘because it makes them happy’ and, again, insist that anyone who considers this a feminine indicator is a dinosaur
All good and well for them, nobody cares how radical they think they are, but they’re also totally fucking batshit crazy to think that,
a) their son won’t be misgendered because of said features, and
b) it might not affect their child to some
extent

OP, I fully agree with your sentiments. I think it’s neglectful parenting if the boy’s parents haven’t explored this with him further. If they have and he’s happy with his hair and clothes regardless that’s fine. Doesn’t sound like he much enjoyed being referred to as a girl though. Also, don’t feel like you have to non-binary pronoun every child you encounter from now on because of some
of the comments thus far. The sane majority would’ve made the same assumptions as you, you did nothing wrong.

It's a 1 min wonder fgs. If you pronounced a child's name wrong then they'd likely correct you indignantly. It's not that it's permanently damaged them and they're giving it a second's more thought.

I had short hair and unisex clothes when I was small. Sometimes I'd correct them but it wasn't causing me trauma.

You're "allowed" to assume a child's sex using shortcut stereotypes. They're allowed to correct you when the stereotype fails.

I was consistently taken for a little boy as I had cropped short hair from age 8 (but even before then when I had longer hair sometimes, as I just looked/dressed quite boyish), but I never really minded, I quite enjoyed the fact that just because of something as silly as short hair people assumed I was a boy.

It’s not an ‘outdated’ stereotype if most people still equate hair length and clothing with specific sexes. It’s just a stereotype. We’re all guilty of holding views that someone would say is stereotypical.
What would you say if your boys asked if they could wear, say, a bra?

Gender being a made up concept, exactly how does one change it? The true self of a person’s body is either male or female. That cant be changed.

It was an outdated stereotype 40 years ago, it is an even more outdated stereotype now.

The point is to try to challenge your own stereotypes.

Your bra question is weird. We are discussing young children on this thread.

One of my ds - who is a young teen but not yet entered puberty and quite delicate featured, has very long hair (entirely his choice) and prefers colourful clothes including pinks and purples (also entirely his choice).

He does fairly often get referred to as a girl and he finds it very upsetting.

He is autistic and he just wears what he likes and has his hair how he likes, but he feels very strongly about his male identity and just really hates it when some one gets it wrong because it's just totally wrong to him and his black and white thinking.
I know that it's never done maliciously and is always a genuine mistake but none of our discussions have helped him to understand or cope with it better when it happens.

It is always completely unnecessary for a stranger to refer to him as any sex specific word and his life would be easier if people didn't generally make these assumptions based on hair and colours and then voice them.

But - I'm not going to do anything to persuade him to change how he dresses or his hair because that would upset him even more. Our discussions about it have included that society tends to 'read' long hair as female and pink/purple as female and that is why it happens. He knows it would stop if he changed his hair and clothes but he (understandably) doesn't want to. He also has strong feelings about the stupidity of stereotyping.

DS has very long hair & was often assumed to be a girl (until recently anyway as he's old enough to look male now & his voice is deep) - he understood why people do it, knows it doesn't mean they actually think he's female just that they made a snap judgement based on percentages. He also doesn't think being female is in any way lesser than being male.

He either just ignored the (your sisters) comments or clarified (the girls toilets are over there).

My DD was always assumed to be male when she was a toddler despite long hair - she is very physical & people seems to equate that with male 🤷‍♀️ I only clarified if the conversation continued but it was often hard to deal with how embarrassed the adult who got it wrong was! So many apologies for nothing.

I have a 1 year old boy who currently has very little hair. I just don't think it's 'radical' to let a child wear whatever they like as long as it's weather appropriate and to either have long hair if a boy or shorter hair if a girl if that's their preference.

How does a child 'look like a girl'? Because you assume long hair and/or colour or pink clothing = girl? That's your outdated stereotypes which I hope you're not instilling in your own children. I have two boys with longish hair who wear a whole spectrum of clothes, my eldest is a particular fan of pink bracelets at the moment. Shocker.

A large part of the world has this stereotype though, and it's not going away that soon.

More importantly, why is it bad if a child is misgendered?

You appear to be saying that it is neglectful parenting to allow your child to make their own choices which do not align with stereotypical expectations for their sex if they are unhappy with being mistaken for the opposite sex? And if they are unhappy with that then the child should wear clothes they hate and change their hair? Really? People shouldn't stop assuming - the child must conform or shut up and not complain?

Why would there be a mental impact to it? What are you envisaging - lifelong trauma? So he corrected you- big fucking deal. Kids do the same thing if you get their age wrong by one year 😉

Have you time travelled from the 1950s?

Six AND A HALF! They go wild if you get their age wrong.

Right well 'possible' mental impact if it is indeed reoccurring. Thanks for all the replies.

I don’t know how it appears to you that that’s what I said? I very clearly said it’s neglectful parenting ‘if they haven’t explored (the topic) further’…if it’s upsetting the child.

In response to your second point - people aren’t going to stop assuming. Markers of gender just are. Whether or not you, or these hypothetical parents and their gender non-conforming child, agree with or like that is another matter. But yes, if my child was very negatively affected by being misgendered because of his appearance then I would suggest that he make changes. Horrific, ay?!

My DS has long hair, like his daddy and many of his friends. He's regularly misgendered. He assumes they're too silly to look at his face, but he doesn't much care.

Despite he and DH having long hair I've genuinely done it myself. I apologised honestly, promised to not do it again, and we all moved on with our lives.

Our son has never had a hair cut as I’m a Sikh, so he has very long hair, he sometimes gets called a girl and he will usually correct the person,if they apologise for calling him a girl he will often say “don’t be sorry its not bad being a girl”

As others have said, nevermind getting boy/girl wrong, if you dare to get their age wrong its essentially so bad it requires you to be in prison. I called our son eight yesterday and he had a right strop because he’s eight and a half, funny that as he was acting more four and a half.

What do you expect the parents to do about it though? I can see it’s annoying for the boy, and probably his parents too but do you expect the, to walk around with a sign saying he’s a boy or something? I think probably people should avoid labelling an unknown child as a boy/ girl etc until you know their gender, I don’t think there are many situations where it’s necessary to refer to an unknown child using sex/ gender pronouns?